


We Don't Have Each Other

by kagedyams



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Flashbacks, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Keith is dense, M/M, Secret Santa, Unrequited Love, platonic hance, platonic pidge and lance, the flashbacks are the fluffy part really
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 19:12:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9137584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kagedyams/pseuds/kagedyams
Summary: We're gonna burn out like dead stars,It gets freezing here after dark.“I’m sorry, I… I can’t reciprocate your feelings.” Whatever hope Lance had before immediately shatters at Keith’s words.  He can feel his heart drop into his stomach, feel the lump constricting his throat and he can feel the sudden chill in the room permeate his clothes and seep into his bones.“Yeah, I get it,” Lance chokes out, "I get it, really, you don’t need to explain it to me. I’m sorry I ruined our training session.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [florfering](https://archiveofourown.org/users/florfering/gifts).



> Well this is part of the Voltronet Secret Santa event for my favorite net Admin Fluffy!!
> 
> This is the angst part of the thing, there's another gift I'm working on that I'll post soon ; )))))
> 
> Anyways, hope anyone reading this enjoys. It's pretty angsty so just keep that in mind i guess?

“I really like you, y’know?”

They’re alone on the training deck, sweaty backs pressed against the cool metal wall. Lance is breathing heavily, voice hoarse from yelling during practice. Keith’s right next to him, so close he can faintly feel the heat radiating from his sweat-soaked body. Lance is watching Keith steadily, who up until now was staring straight off into the distance, tired out from their rigorous exercise. He watches as a bead of sweat trickles down the side of his face, shimmering in the fluorescent light of the room. Keith looks breathtaking, and that must be why Lance spilled his feelings out so easily.

Keith turns to look at him, eyes widened in slight surprise. Lance doesn’t speak, doesn’t breathe, as he’s lost in the slight shimmer in Keith’s violet eyes. He gets lost in his look of astonishment, a look he doesn’t see all too often. Keith’s lips are slightly parted, breath coming out in short puffs of exhaustion. Finally, those pink and slightly chapped lips close and fold upwards into a small smile.

“Yeah, you’re not too bad yourself,”

Lance inhales sharply, caught off guard. He didn’t expect this, not at all. That his feelings would be… _requited._ He goes through every rejection in his life, trying to find a moment when something like this actually happened. He has no clue how to respond to this reciprocation. Does he kiss him? Does he go in for a hug? Luckily, Keith fills the gap in Lance’s blanking mind by continuing. 

“I never expected us to be friends like this when we first met,” Keith chuckles, turning back around and resting his head on the cool metal wall.

“Ah,” is all Lance can muster, his thoughts finally catching up with his rapid heartbeat. _So that’s what he meant, of course,_ Lance laughs dryly to himself, turning away from Keith as well, letting the cold of the training room seep into his skull and cool his emotions. _Of course it’d be the same._ Still, he does the most Lance thing he can think of and tries again.

“That's… not what I meant,” Lance starts, staring at his shoes. His feet swish back and forth, a slight signal of his nervousness.

 He can feel Keith’s heated gaze on him, but he refuses to turn around. He knows Keith enough to know that his insanely bushy eyebrows are furrowed in confusion, mouth twisted downwards. He almost wants to look at him just so Keith can’t see the blazing red tint on his ears, but he knows his face looks even worse: flushed and shiny with sweat and tears prickling at his eyes.

“I don’t understand. What do you mean by ‘I like you’ then?” Keith asks, and Lance can’t tell if he’s frustrated or grateful for his cluelessness. He knows he can use this as an escape, but his head is a mess from the exercise and the months of repressed feelings that he can’t help but spell it out.

“It means I… like you more than a friend. You know, like a like that’s different from the way I like Hunk or Pidge. The kinda like that I liked Allura or Nyma, you know?” Lance’s heart is pounding so hard he’s afraid it may actually break a rib. Through the pounding in his ears, he can feel Keith’s contemplative silence, as if he hasn’t processed what has happened yet. Lance apprehensively turns to him, just in time to watch a rather constipated look to overcome Keith’s face. His eyebrows are furrowed, eyes narrowed in slight confusion, yet his mouth is open in slight surprise. He watches Keith’s chest rise and fall as he releases a sigh, averting his eyes from Lance.

“So you… have feelings for me?” Keith asks, his voice eerily level.

“Um, yeah, that’s kinda what I just said?” Lance poses his statement as more of a question.

Keith’s silent again, eyes trained on the floor as if it’s more interesting than Lance’s anxious face. There’s a pregnant pause, and Lance swears he’ll die of heart failure before Keith answers him.

“I’m sorry, I… I can’t reciprocate your feelings. Loto's still out there and we haven’t gotten anywhere with saving the universe and I really can’t have a distraction like that. You know, it could jeopardize us forming Voltron and all that, you get that, right?” Whatever hope Lance had before immediately shatters at Keith’s words. He can feel his heart drop into his stomach, feel the lump constricting his throat and he can feel the sudden chill in the room permeate his clothes and seep into his bones. Keith looks up at last to look at him, but Lance is already getting to his feet, head bowed and bangs shadowing his wet eyes.

“Yeah, I get it,” Lance chokes out, swallowing thickly as if that could remedy the sudden collapse of all his bodily functions. He’s used to the rejection, he’d need all the paladin’s fingers combined just to count how many people had shot him down. But it still hurts, to lay your feelings bare and then for someone to trample and dirty them. He clenches his first, forcing out the rest of the words. “I get it, really, you don’t need to explain it to me. I’m sorry I ruined our training session,” Lance’s voice is tense, words spit out between gritted teeth and the bile rising from his stomach. Before he can embarrass himself further, he’s moving out the door and away from a stunned Keith.

 

* * *

  

“I knew it,” Lance mutters to himself as he enters his room, shutting the door behind him. He doesn’t turn the lights on, just presses his heated back against the cool and unforgiving metal door. “I knew it and still I—“ he doesn’t finish, because his mind fills in the blanks with memories of what he’s said. He feels hopeless, breath escaping him erratically as he tries to cool off. It’s no use, and his knees buckle under him as he slides down onto the floor, curled up into a tight ball.

“What was I expecting? I knew what he’d say, and that’s why I never told him before,” Lance whispers to his knees, pressing his forehead against them softly. He can feel the unyielding hardness of his kneecaps, and it helps calm him down. His face is hot, but the tears falling down it feel like magma, an angry flurry of heated dampness.

He had spent months concealing his feelings. He was doing so good, being able to practice and eat with Keith without blushing and stammering too much. Lance, who’s always so vocal about his feelings, was finally able to hide something. Even Pidge hadn’t a clue, and she had such a sharp intuition for all manners of feelings.

“Why did I do something so stupid?” Lance curses himself softly, but his words hardly echo in the lonely silence of his room. Lance already knows the answer to his self-deprecating question though.

 

* * *

 

“We had a bonding moment, I cradled you in my arms!”

That was the first time Lance felt it, the pang in his heart just by Keith being near him. It was true he didn’t remember that moment; his memory was fuzzy from hours spent in a forced unconsciousness. But he did remember the warmth in Keith’s smile, the soft words spoken as the heat of another person filled the cold hurt from the explosion. If he had known that remembering all that would lead to rejection, he would much rather have forgotten everything.

That moment was probably when he first recognized his feelings. He had spent his entire time in Garrison trying to be recognized as _Lance,_ and not the second-rate cargo pilot who replaced the prodigious Keith Kogane. He had always passed off his need for recognition as resentment, but maybe that wasn’t all it was. Perhaps the hurt that Keith didn’t recognize him on that crashed Galra ship was because someone he aspired to be equaled to, even greater than, had failed to notice him. He should’ve taken that as a hint that Keith would never recognize him as someone worthy to be with him.

He kept trying though. Challenging Keith to inane competitions just so that his focus would be on him, even if for a moment. Even if all Keith fostered for him was distaste, it was better than never being noticed. Even if the only time Lance’s face crossed Keith’s mind was during training fighting an android, at least he still thought about it. Lance was just glad he wasn’t just a leg, a butt in a cockpit that just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Even if the look in his eyes was different from the admiration directed at Shiro, at least he was looking at him at all. And Lance was perfectly okay with that.

Except he wasn’t.

 

“We do make a great team,”

 

He shouldn’t have remembered those words. He should’ve kept content with his contestations and his constant losses when sparring Keith. He could’ve kept on with his delusion that he and Keith were rivals and be done with it.

Those words brought the realization that _no, they weren’t rivals._ They were a team, two-fifths of a close-knit group that relied on each other; they weren’t neck-and-neck, they were hand-in-hand. And just when Lance had accepted that, he had accepted every other repressed feeling. He didn't want to be rivals; he just wanted Keith’s eyes to always watch him, only him. He wanted Keith to spar with him not because Lance wanted to prove he was better, but because he wanted Keith to trust him enough with a weapon aimed at his neck. Lance realized then that he maybe, possibly, feasibly, had a crush on Keith.

 

* * *

 

Lance goes to sleep with puffy eyes and red face hidden behind a facemask. He wakes up looking refreshed but feeling broken. It's times like this that he wishes he wasn’t part of an exclusive group destined to save the universe so he could spend a week hiding in his room and lamenting his own failures. But he gets up, rinses his face and dabs at his eyes just to make sure the swelling’s gone down.

Everyone’s in the dining room when Lance arrives; Hunk is serving his odd alien concoction that he always manages to make look edible. Everyone’s seated, heads turning to look at Lance as he waltzes in, exuding his usual air of confidence. He notices immediately that Keith’s the only one not looking, and he sighs to himself as he sits in his usual seat: right next to Keith. He doesn't want to draw attention to what happened yesterday, he doesn’t want the other paladins to worry. Of course he’s upset by the rejection, but he can see Keith’s point about messing up the whole Voltron dynamic. As much as he wants to forget Keith the same way Keith forgot him, Lance needs focus on the mission at hand.

“Hey Hunk that looks good, what is it?” Lance asks, resting his elbow on the table to glance at Hunk. Hunk’s beaming at the compliment, but Lance catches Coran looking on grumpily with crossed arms and pouted lip.

Despite his feigned interest, he zones out as soon as Hunk talks about the Rigordian fruits gifted to him during their last planetary visit. He can feel Keith’s eyes warily trained on him, as if daring him to speak of the matter from yesterday. Lance doesn't, instead pointing his gaze downwards as soon as Hunk hands him his food. He scarfs it down, hoping he can leave before he’s forced into any semblance of conversation with the red paladin sitting next to him. Unfortunately, Allura is not so attuned to his feelings as she goes over the day’s plans.

“Paladins, if you have not noticed we are very near to entering the atmosphere of the planet Parlean. Since they are farther out in the universe, the Galrans have not reached them until just recently. We received a distress signal from one of their rebellion outposts and we are going to use this chance to aid them in liberating their planet. Since they are new to this sector of space, they have only established one central base on Parlean. The plan today is to take out the base and jam their communication with the Galra main fleet, allowing the native Parleans to take back their planet on their own,” Allura explains, folding her hands together as she explains eagerly. 

“Sounds like a plan, Princess. Where is the base?” Shiro pipes up. Coran stands up at this, pulling up a map to direct the paladin’s attention.  

Lance zones out again, half-heartedly listening to the long stretch of chatter from Coran as he talks about the ecology of the area and the planet’s bubbling mud-pits and flourishing foliage. After cleaning up their breakfast and outfitting themselves in their paladin suits, Lance finds himself wrapped in the familiar feeling of Blue’s cockpit.

 

It’s not that the mission’s a failure, but it didn’t go entirely according to plan. By that, Lance means another near-death experience regarding his accidental separation from the group just before they were going to take out their central cannon. Separated from the pack, Lance finds himself the target of a flurry of particle blasts that sends red alarms blaring in the cockpit and a sense of vertigo to overcome him as he almost crashes directly into one of the planet’s bubbling mud-pits. After a sharp reprimand from Shiro, Lance gathers his wits enough to finish the mission without any outstanding blunders. After another lecture from Shiro back in the castle-ship, Lance is sent off to the showers.

He begins to wish that bubbling mud-pit really had swallowed him up when he sees who’s waiting outside the bathroom door.

Keith’s leaning against the wall next to the door, arms crossed and ankles folded one over the other. He’s looking pensively at the ground, and Lance is about ready to make a stealthy retreat back towards when Keith looks up, catching his gaze. Lance swallows thickly, moving forward so he’s right in front of Keith. Keith pushes himself off the wall, looking up at Lance with an unreadable expression.

“What happened out there?” Keith asks the question Lance was dreading. He averts his eyes, scowling towards the ground and wishing it would do some magical alien thing where it would open up and swallow him.

“It was nothing, I just misheard the orders. Shiro already told me off for it, so just drop it,” Lance doesn’t want to hear more about his blunder, much less hear about it from _Keith_ of all people, who he had pointedly tried his level best to act normal around during the day. He was kind of hoping that Keith would develop selective amnesia and forget the whole ordeal in the training room, but his next question dispels that hope.

“Is it because of yesterday? Are you still hung up about it?”

Lance balls his fists up. It’s not as if it’s a touchy topic, but the way he phrased the question. As if his feelings were something petty that could easily be swept under the rug like some rogue dust. “I told you, I just misheard. It’s not a big deal or anything,” Lance mutters, wanting to scurry away from the topic as fast as possible.

“Like hell you misheard. You’ve been acting weird since breakfast, don’t deny it. You weren’t like this with Nyma, can’t you just brush it off or something?”

Lance isn’t sure he heard him right. _Brush it off._ Right, if it were that easy he wouldn’t have kept his feelings to himself for so long. He could’ve just _brushed them off_ as soon as he realized what they were. But he doesn’t want to lose composure; he doesn't want to show Keith some odd side of him.

“Have you ever liked someone?' 

Keith looks taken aback, eyes widening at the question. Lance almost laughs at the predictability of it all. Of course: serious, lone wolf Keith would never have feelings for anyone.

“So I guess you wouldn’t understand this, right?” Lance actually does laugh wryly at this, looking up into Keith’s pensive face. “This isn’t something I can just leave behind on Parlean or push out an airlock, you know?”

“But you’ve done it before, haven’t you? You’ve been rejected a bunch of times and you always bounce right back to the next girl,” Keith says plainly, but a tormented look is on his face, as if it wasn’t just about this. 

Lance is taken aback by the look. He’s the one being pushed away so forcefully, yet Keith looks like he’s living a nightmare. “Hey,” Lance starts, and the furrow between Keith’s eyebrows smoothens, as if suddenly brought back to the present. “I’m the one being rejected here, so why do you have that look on your face?” Lance asks, poking at the space between Keith’s forehead. Keith backs away from his touch, and Lance clamps down on the feeling of rejection that comes with that action.

“I might not have ever liked anyone, but I still know the feeling,” Keith tries to explain, mouth twisted downwards as if tasting something bitter. “When you put all your effort into something but it’s not enough. I was kicked out of the Garrison, even though I was the best out there. I spent all my time trying to find Shiro and figuring out the meaning of all those signals, and I couldn’t solve it until I met you guys. So even if I don’t know what having that sort of feeling for someone may feel like, I think I understand what you’re feeling right now,” Keith answers. Lance wasn’t expecting that, and he’s a bit taken aback. Perfect, amazing, effortless Keith had all of those feelings? Lance had always assumed Keith did everything on a whim, keeping to his own perfect world and blocking out anyone who could shatter the illusion. He feels a pang in his chest.

“So you’re using that pain to try to understand how I feel?” Lance asks, one part for understanding and one part in disbelief. He didn’t think Keith had the capacity for that level of introspection, and it’s caught him off guard. _He’s substituting his own feelings of rejection just to understand me,_ Lance thinks solemnly. Keith’s eyes are clouded over, as if he’s currently reliving each and every rejection. Its too much more Lance to bear.

 

_My feelings are nothing but a burden._

“Hey,” Lance starts again, trying to tempt Keith to look back up at him. It works, and Lance almost loses the nerve to talk when he sees the glossy film over Keith’s eyes. _What an idiot, hurting himself just to understand me. I really have become a burden for this team._ Lance is thinking negatively, but he has to fix things before he’s blamed with ruining the Voltron dynamic with his stupid feelings. “You can forget about my feelings, okay?”

“Huh?” Keith looks surprised, as if it’s the last thing he thought would come out of Lance’s mouth. Lance himself is surprised, but he knows he has to do this. The faster he’s rejected, the faster he can move on and find some new humanoid alien to flirt with long enough to forget his half-baked feelings.

“You’re right, I don’t think these feelings were even real, you know? Like, back on Rigordi there was that whole ordeal with Rimay and it kinda had me down, so I used you as a kind of crutch, right. Oh! And you kept sparring with me after and it made me really happy, so I mistook that for liking you! So, I’m sure this is gonna go away soon, so just forget about yesterday, okay?” It hurts Lance to admit it. Each word he forces out causes the lump in his throat to grow bigger with each lie. But the relief that passes by Keith’s face washes that all away.

“ I see,” Keith says, suddenly looks much more cheery. He reaches forward and pinches Lance’s cheek, causing him to cry out. “That’s what you get for worrying me. Geez, should’ve told me that before the mission, you know,” Keith’s laughing, and it almost hurts just watching him pass off Lance’s feelings once again. He was so sure they were finally getting to understand each other.

Lance laughs, rubbing his sore cheek, “Yeah, yeah. Make sure you save some time to spar with me tonight, I gotta get better if I can’t even stop a laser cannon,” Lance turns away from Keith, moving past him to open the door to the bathroom.

“Count on it,” Keith answers confidently, bidding adieu to Lance as he closes the door to the bathroom. He can hear the faint sound of Keith’s boots against the castle floor, moving him further from the bathroom. Lance moves forward on shaky legs, pulling his shirt over his head as he stands before the bathroom mirror.

 

He’s not surprised to see the tears. 

**Author's Note:**

> Well that was fun. I wrote this straight-up today because I finally got motivation. I really shouldn't be starting another project sicne I've got i think 3 other chaptered fics to write but who cares?? Since I got all this creativity now I might actually be ablet o finish one of them.
> 
> Anyways, I really hope you like it Fluffy, even though it's like super late. There's gonna be a part 2 to ur gift that's gonna be so late ur gonna forget how late this one was though, so it's all good.
> 
> kagedyams.tumblr.com
> 
> Title is from Aaron and the Roaring Twenties' album We Don't Have Each Other. Highly suggest y'all listen to it at some point, it's such a good songstory.


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